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15 Ways to Save Money on Chicken Feed

It’s a heartbreaking moment…

When you first realize your homegrown eggs are costing you more than what you’d pay for eggs at the store…

The current state of mass food production has duped us into believing things like milk, eggs, and grains cost much less than they actually do or should.

For example: Even though we have our own milk cow, our milk technically costs me MORE than it would to simply buy a gallon at the grocery store.

The good news? Saving money isn’t the primary reason we’ve chosen to own a cow. For us, it’s really about the quality of the product; our milk is fresh, beyond organic, and wonderfully raw. Not to mention owning a cow just plain makes me happy, so it’s a quality of life thing for us as well.

Chickens and eggs fall into the same category. While it depends on feed prices in your area, I’m still going to venture to say if you are looking for “frugal” eggs, you’ll probably be better off to buy eggs from the store. But, that’s not the reason most of us keep chickens, right? We love the bright yellow yolks, the satisfaction of watching the hens peck around the yard, and all that comes with chicken-ownership.

However, if you experienced sticker-shock the last time you walked into the feed store, take heart! There are plenty of ways to save money on chicken feed, AND boost your flock’s nutrition in the process. This list will help you get started—>

15 Ways to Save Money on Chicken Feed

1. Shop around. When I started calling different feed mills, I was surprised at the huge difference in prices. Just remember– cheaper isn’t always better, and if you are feeding an ultra low-quality feed, it can be very hard on your birds. Never sacrifice your chickens’ health just to save a buck.

2. Mix your own feed. I say this with a wee bit of hesitation, since depending on your situation, it may actually be MORE expensive to mix your own feed… However, I do suggest finding a recipe you like (all my homemade chicken feed recipes are in my Natural Homestead book), and then shopping around with local feed stores to see how much it would cost for them to mix it for you. Also, don’t forget to check with the local farmers in your area. Sometimes they’ll have older grains sitting around that aren’t fit for human use, but would be fabulous for your flock.

3. Buy feed in bulk. I buy everything in bulk, including my chicken feed. Often feed stores will give you a cut if you purchase a pallet of feed, rather than just a bag or two. Another trick is to split a large order with a friend. My one caveat is this: chicken feed which has been ground/processed/cracked, rapidly looses nutrition as it sits. It’s probably not a good idea to purchase a year’s supply at a time, unless you are using a recipe that calls for whole grains–they are much more shelf-stable.

5. Stop feeding free-choice. This is actually a topic with a bit of debate surrounding it… (Have you noticed everything causes a debate these days?) While I like the thought of allowing my flock to self-regulate, it can be a problem if you have lots of rodents. Rats and mice think free-choice chicken feeding is the best thing ever, and if you struggle with rodent problems in your coop, it’s likely your all-you-can-eat grain buffet is to blame. This problem can be avoided by only feeding as much as your chickens can eat in one day.

6. Free range as much as possible. I realize this isn’t possible for everyone, but if you can, allow your chickens to roam around your yard. Not only will this greatly supplement their diet, it can also help to control bug populations, and keeps them from becoming bored. Plus, there is something so soothing about watching chickens scratch around your front porch.

7. Bring the yard to the flock, if the flock can’t roam the yard. When my hens must stay confined to their pen in the summer months (usually because they are destroying my almost-ripe tomatoes), I like to pick large handfuls of weeds or grass and toss them over the chicken-run fence. The girls definitely enjoy rummaging around in the green matter. I also like to take a bucket to the garden with me when I weed, and I collect all the weeds in the bucket and transport them to the flock as well. (Although I don’t have near as many weeds as I used to, thanks to my deep-mulching adventures!)

8. Ask for leftover vegetable and fruit scraps at the grocery store. Not all stores will allow this, but ask if you can have the wilted lettuce, squishy tomatoes, and bruised apples. Some folks also collect stale bread items from bakeries, but I personally avoid this. Many of the bread items sold in stores like donuts, breads, rolls, or muffins are made with heavily processed ingredients and additives. They might be okay for the occasional treat, but they aren’t something I’d recommend feeding on a regular basis– just as humans shouldn’t eat them as the bulk of their diet.

9. Grow your own feedstuffs. Grains, cover crops, greens, sunflowers, and various veggies are good places to start.

10. Grow duckweed. I haven’t tried growing my own duckweed yet, but I’m totally intrigued! Duckweed is a high protein plant that can be fed to a variety of animals, including chickens. If you’re a duckweed grower, please leave a comment and share your wisdom!

11. Raise soldier grubs. As tough as I like to think I am, I must confess I’m still not quite ready to tackle the whole concept of raising grubs/larvae for my birds. Do I think it’s incredibly smart? YES. Do I think it’s a fabulous way to create low-cost, high-protein feed? YES. Do I want to get up-close-and personal with maggots? Eh, not quite yet. If you’re braver than me, my chicken-keeping idol, Harvey Ussery, has a chapter in his book(affiliate link) devoted entirely to cultivating soldier grubs.

12. Offer leftover milk and whey. If you own dairy goats, cows, or sheep, you are familiar with the feeling of drowning in milk. When you’re floating in milk and have made all the homemade yogurt and mozzarella cheese you can handle, consider sharing your excess with your chickens. Leftover milk and whey are full of protein and most flocks will enjoy the treat. For an extra boost of probiotic nutrition, clabber your raw milk by allowing it to sit out at room temperature for several days until it begins to thicken. (Don’t attempt this with pasteurized milk– you will not have the same results.)

13. Save kitchen scraps for your flock. I keep a small bucket on my kitchen counter at all times and continually toss in bits of leftover bread, celery ends, carrot peelings, watermelon rinds, and more. It’s a feeding frenzy when I show up at the coop. My chickens have even been known to chase me down in the yard when they see me carrying any sort of white bucket. It’s insanely satisfying to watch your birds turn kitchen waste into orange-yolked eggs.

More Chicken Resources

I adore Harvey Ussery’s book, The Small Scale Poultry Flock. I reference it constantly, and he has ideas you won’t find anywhere else. (affiliate link)

What are YOUR best tips for feeding chickens frugally? Leave a comment!

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I just learned about duckweed and azolla! I ordered some organic starts and will be feeding it to my chickens and dairy goats soon! I gave the sprouted barley fodder thing a go last year, but it was complicated and messy and took up too much space in my dining room. The duckweed and azolla seem like they will be easier to keep and the excess will feed my garden.

I use just about every method you listed and want to offer one more for your list. It may be too “icky” for some city folks but it helps. Maggot buckets. Get a, one to five gallon bucket with lid, drill some holes in the sides and lots of holes all over the bottom. I hang this bucket with bailing twine from the rafters. Most farms and homesteads will have some animal death, be it a dead chicken or cat or rodent, with gloves I place the dead critter in the bucket and cover,( you can also use any spoiled meat products from the kitchen) The fly’s are attracted to the meat and lay eggs, the maggots must drop down to the soil to continue the life cycle and the chickens love both the flys and the maggots. I’ve never notice much of a smell problem and after a month or so (depending on weather) I just bury the fir/feathers and bones.

That sounds like a good idea, but in many states that is inviting bears in for a tasty treat.The smell might attract other predators in as well even just in curiosity.

Cat little buckets would work pretty well for this too as they dont seal shut all the way. Learned this the hard way when i had a “compost bucket” out my back door. I dont know what it is about maggots that make me gag. Never fails, i see maggots I gag.

Great post – and timely too as our feed costs and egg production are sadly in stark contrast to each other! Our girls love the extra whey we give them from our goat cheese making. It makes me feel like I’m not wasting a thing from our farmland.

Great ideas! I will be sure to call around!
My tip may not be for everyone, but it’s more conventional if you want that extra buck – cancel CABLE. We canceled about 3 years ago, and are no worse for the wear. Plus, it just happens to be (about) the same price per month as keeping 14 chickens 🙂 and let’s face it, why are you watching tv when you’ve got so many chickens to entertain you?!

I too have read Ussery’s book cover to cover. Great stuff! I started a mealworm colony by recycling an old 5 gallon aquarium in my garage left over from our kid’s gerbil keeping days. Easy peasy! No odor. Use wheat bran or oatmeal for bedding. Feed sprouted potatoes, cabbage cores, apple cores, carrots, etc as kitchen waste. The girls absolutely LOVE them and will jump for them!! It’s a high protein snack especially for molting season. The best thing is, it is perpetual…their lifecycle repeats itself without any attention from you & they make great non-gooey fishing bait! Got tips from Pinterest & tweaked the setup to be as self sustaining (less work) as possible.

Free ranging has definitely been the most help for us on feed costs. But I really want to talk with my grocery store about less than prime produce. What I worry about is the fact that we try to keep our chickens as organic as possible, so I would really only want the organic produce which may get complicated. Worth asking though 😉

Great article,,, in addition to what you have mentioned, I save the egg shells dry them and crash them to nearly powder and feed them this instead of buying oyster shells. I need to get some courage to speak to my local grocery store to see if I can get the vegetable scraps. Thanks

Jill,
Our local coop will fill up our trashcans (in an open trailer) with grains or cracked corn or even specially-mixed feed, if we call ahead. It’s even cheaper than buying it by the pallet at the feed store!

I buy non GMO or soy feed I mix with flax seed that you can buy for $1 lbs oyster crack shell and crack non GMO corn mix all together last me like 3 weeks $45 plus I feed them all the peels from my veggies that I cook that day, cook rice left overs, pasta left over, salmon left over you can give them the eggs shell after you cook your eggs, and When I have to much eggs,I make them scramble eggs in coconut oil, they are always hungry lol plus they eat hrass all day long, I love my 6 ladies and their orange yolk egg color they are so much fun.

I couldn’t afford my flock of I 45$ every three weeks for only 6 chickens. We buy 1 bag scratch and 1 bag pellets at 50lb for 10.99, mix together and it cost 22.00, that feeds my 8 hens, 3 roosters, 3 ducks, and 2 Guineas for a month. During the day they forage in the yard for bugs and grass seeds. Eggs are the best I’ve ever had. Kids tend to favor duck eggs over anything.

I was told the other day by a farmer/rancher here in the Kern River Valley that black eyed peas are excellent feed for chickens, high in protein, much better then corn scratch. You must hydrate first in water for a day before feeding. He sell then 300 pounds for $75.00 and supplies a water proof container. Check in your area for some one that sell them.

Hello,
I’m new to your site this morning but will bookmark when done here. Great stuff, good writing and pictures. I came here after googling how to set up a homestead dairy. I plan to add a small room on the house-side of our future barn and wanted to see different set ups.

We grow some of our feed and do most of the other suggestions as well. We sell our excess eggs which pays our store bought grain bill. However, our turkeys eat more and we can’t keep up. No eggs to sell this time of year. Lesson learned, time your hatchings earlier in year so they will be ready for processing before winter arrives. Second lesson, be cautious buying incubator off craigslist.
The “lessons learned” never stops. That’s what makes this life interesting.

Thank you for taking the time and effort to share your experiences.
Respectfully,
Pam Baker

I’ve been poking around your blog a bit and I’m in love with it! Like you, I’ve have a pretty conventional childhood but I’ve always been fascinated by old-fashioned traditions and values. I grew up reading books like Little House on the Prairie and anything by Janette Oke and I would play make-believe and pretend I lived on a homestead. Though I’m still a young’n attending college, I hope to someday raise a family of my own on a homestead while living a natural, healthy lifestyle that is honoring to Jesus! Thank you for your blog and all the great information you share!

You are absolutely correct! We are very misled about what food really costs. Thanks for the truth.

I think you thought of everything!

My favorite way to off-set feed costs is #8 on your list. We have a little, road-side market in our little town that is the best spot for free food. All the produce beyond its prime is available in 5 gallon buckets behind the store. It’s first come- first serve and a great way to supplement the feed for chickens, pigs or other critters around your place. Just be sure to take your own buckets. 🙂

The cost of the eggs is definitely surprising! We’ve begun to sell our extra eggs and that just about covers the cost of feed. Last summer we were able to fill up our feed sacks with seed screenings from a local farmers field for free! We fed them nearly all summer on that and our garden’s extras (and all the yummies they could find in their large forested run). I love the idea of growing some of our own feed, and extra veggies just for the flock.

Great post! We do many of these same things to save money. We grow a lot of comfrey during the growing season and we harvest and dry it for the chickens and other livestock. If you harvest it at the right time it is one of the highest protein plants! We grow a duckweed in our tilapia aquaponic set up but we don’t get enough to feed to the chickens. I am working on plans this winter to start growing it in the spring! It would be a great food source fresh and dried!

I enjoy your blog. I have a pond full of duckweed. I do feed it to my chickens. They will eat it, but it is not their favorite food. I mix it with my chicken feed (50%). It is a lot of work to harvest and dry. Once it is dry I store it in a large drum. It will mold if not completely dry. By mixing with the chicken feed, I can make a 50lb bag last about a month (have 7 chickens).

We have 16 Americauna hens and they pay for their feed monthly by selling eggs back at the feed store…some Monday mornings there are people waiting for our eggs or following us back in the store for some!!! And this isn’t a high priced area for eggs. $2 a dozen is max. But 7 dozen eggs a week pays for their feed and they new chicks we buy every spring. We basically eggs the small eggs. Often our kids come buy and theirs are free, of course. All scraps go to the chickens and I make spouts every week…start feeding them as day old chicks and they will follow me anywhere for sprout! Usually wheat but barley,rye,teff have all been tried. One thing I know is to not feed a lot of corn as your will find them full of fat when they quit laying..lean and mean egg laying machines is what you want. Not freeloaders. I know some people have “pet” chickens but this farm expects everything to help pay the bills.

Great post my husband and I are working on getting a mixer grinder to make our own feed right now to cut costs. He is a truck driver and plans to haul wheat this year so we may be able to find cheap feed to haul back home from other areas. We free range our chickens when ever possible we see a huge difference in our feed bill from winter to summer. Here in North East Montana it gets pretty chilly for the ladies to be out in winter. Due to our isolation we are stuck with only the elevator for feed so we are at their mercy, this drives us to be more creative.

I am very intrigued by the thoughts on sprouting and fermenting! I could possibly even do the meal worms I know there will be gagging but anything for our animals…

The Cowboy and I have been having this very same debate around here. We decided to skip chickens this year and try and do a large garden instead! Hope you have some posts coming up about gardening in dry and windy Wyoming!

So we’re planning to have chickens as soon as we buy a home (in the next 4 months). I’d love to free range them, both to save costs and reduce bugs. But I hear they destroy even an established garden if allowed to free-roam. So can we let them loose in the yard? I don’t want a lawn, so if they’d eat it down to the ground AND it was nutritious for them, that’s be the best of all worlds. 🙂 I’m sure we’d need to fence it to keep them from escaping (or domestic pets from coming in after them) as well.

I have incorporated many of your ideas that you have listed. I don’t have a dairy cow but I do buy milk in plastic jugs and when the jug is almost empty, I fill the jug with water and give it to the chickens. I also crush my eggs from cooking and feed them back to the chickens. I have also found that if I feed the chickens pelleted feed instead of crumbled feed they don’t waste as much. The chickens also have lots of free range time out in the grass and the area around the chicken coop. I lost a hen a week or so ago from either a hawk or a fox that lives near by.

As for weeding out the non- producers, that is a tough decision. I have four of my original hens left and I just can’t imagine putting them in the stew pot. In fact I had to bring one in the house yesterday because she hurt her leg, but she is standing on it this morning, so it is back to the hen house today.

I look forward to your post on Wednesday. There is always something useful to read and think about.

I am a commercial cook and where ever I work I do the “chook bucket”. i make it part of my wage deal when i start at a new place. All scraps go into that and I take it home at the end of shift.
To be honest cooking for a job does not pay much and is hard work so any fringe benefits like extras for the chooks or the dogs makes it more worth while to me when I bring treats home.

I also do the weed and feed option and this reduces my waste in the garden as well as feeds the girls.

Sprouting alfalfa and similar seeds boost my baby chicks/ducklings/poults along and the greens are great fillers so they eat less crumble. I train my ducks to come back when called with a feed bucket so I can release them down on the creek to forage and get them home safe before dark.

I have 6 girls in an over-priced tractor on our .4 acre. We also started meat birds last year. Big learning curve with the meaties. But we’re actually doing 2 batches this year, so it can’t have been that bad!

I wanted to ferment their feed, but I think I was making too much at one time (once it turned too sour they refused it), and I couldn’t figure out how to give it to them without it spilling all over the place out of the troughs. I gave it up for the winter, because I was frustrated and also I couldn’t figure out how to keep it from freezing without keeping it inside where the smell would get to us (my daughter is a supper-smeller). I’d be willing to give it another go especially for the broilers if I can figure out the spilling problem.

Right now my girls are rarely leaving the covered indoor part of the tractor. They hate the snow and cold! and I’m getting no eggs at all. But we just bought a juicer, and I hadn’t thought to give them the pulp! They came out this morning and were happy birds indeed.

I must say that although I raise meat birds, these first 6 hens are the “Lucky Clucker Club” who will live out their natural lives and be buried in the back yard with grave markers next to the cat. Any more we get, I won’t promise that. But Bunny, Red, Buttercup, Asoka, Padme, and Anikin Skyclucker the Jedi Chicken need have nothing to fear.

We’ve had alot of success free ranging our girls, we keep 20 or so chickens, some ducks, geese, and turkeys, and weve never had predator problems since we added the larger birds to the flock. Zuchinni grows here like weeds so i grow several hills just for them to eat, along with leftovers from surplus garden crops. I order my chicks in big orders and sell the extras as laying hens, i can pay for my entire chick order plus several months of feed by doing this because most people around me want beautiful laying hens without dealing with chicks. i absolutely love your blog, it is helping us be more self-sufficient, even though my parents think im nuts, lol!

Love all the suggestions as this is a conversation we’ve had around here on more than one occasion! I would use caution, though, about giving chickens pulled grass and weeds. If the roots aren’t attached the chicken will take in blades of grass several inches long (rather than smaller, broken pecked off pieces). These long pieces can get trapped in the crop causing crop compaction and/or sour crop; they just can’t process them. I learned the hard way on this one (even after several tippings from which long pieces off grass were pulled out &, sour crop treatments she still died).

Have you ever heard of Korean Natural Farming? We have an acre of land in the city and we want to have chickens (we can have up to 4.) What we don’t want is a lot of the smell, flies, bugs (etc.) and a lot of extra work cleaning out the coop. In his pursuit of this on YouTube my husband stumbled upn KNF on YouTube. From what we’ve learned so far (which isn’t much), this process makes a living floor for the chickens to walk on. When they defecate the IMO’s (Indigenous Micro Organisms) – that you collect and grow and then innoculate the floor with – eat the feces and prevent it from smelling which means you never have to clean out the chicken run but it never smells AND the floor actually becomes 10% of their healthy feed. Hawaii Natural Farming has a series on collecting and growing the IMOs but I am trying to locate someone who has used this system so we could ask questions, etc, on how to get started.

Oh, and apparently, a similar system can be used for pigs so that the pigpen never smells, you never have to clean it out and there are no flies. Crazy, huh? Are you familiar with either of these?

Deep litter. Providing oyster shell can reduce feed consumption up to around 7% as hens will eat more feed than they need to obtain calcium. Provide hulled oats or wheat. Hens who do not need the protein of full heavy production will tend to eat less layer feed and more grain.

I buy store brought laying pellets for $11.00 a bag. I think the bag is a 20 kilo bag. Oh I almost forgot, I live in Hillcrest Queensland Australia. I also give them the left over food scraps and other scraps from the kitchen. I don’t give them onions, garlic or chillies. I have 15 chickens that includes 2 roosters, (I had brought 1 rooster with my hens and one of my hens be came Brody. She sat on 1 egg. Hatch in to another rooster) 8 dicks and a Guinea Fowl. I am looking for a nother Guinea Fowl so she can have a boyfriend. My husband feeds the chickens before i get up. He is usually up at 5.30 am. Then when I get up i open up the pen and let them free range all day b 4 putting them in the pen at nite. I am new at this and want to know if they have had laying pellets in the mornings do I need to give them laying pellets again at night. Also how can i move my ducks and their nest away from the crows. My ducks Mr and Mrs Jerry and Germima Puddleduck are nesting and sitting on 12 eggs. I have about 3 to 4 crows that hand around. I dont want then to get the eggs or the baby ducks when they hatch. Also how long do it take for a duck eggs to hatch. Is it the same as chicken eggs?

In the summer we have cut our feeding cost by 100%. We use compost, food scraps from our house and local resturants as well as rotational grazing with electric poultry netting and a chickshaw styled coop! Justin Rhodes from permaculture chickens and Geoff Lawton from Zaytona Farms have been very helpful in our efforts to cut cost and keep the girls happy and healthy.The girls seem more then happy and run to the compost before they run to the feed. 🙂 Highly recommend

Just read through this and wanted to post up a reply regarding the duckweed and soldier grubs, we do both. Our current flock is 50+ birds on an acre of semi-wooded south Texas land and it’s surprising how much they eat. We ferment the feed we get from a local feed store so it does last a bit. The soldier grubs (Black Soldier Fly larvae) are amazing little things. I’ve got a bin built based on what I saw on youtube that provides us with about 3lbs of feed grubs a day. We put all of our kitchen waste in there along with the trimmings from the garden and to be honest any of the pest animals that we trap and kill on the property. The grubs eat all of it and become high protein feed for the chickens. We also have a pond with tilapia in it that feeds a stilling basin. That basin holds fry fish and some crustaceans but it’s main function is to grow duckweed. That stuff doubles in about 24 hours and goes to feed both our chickens and the fish. It’s a bit of work keeping all the systems going but when it runs well it really saves us money on feed.